Plasma Waves near the Moon

The Moon has a thin surface bound exosphere consisting mainly inert gases helium, neon and argon. Apart from the ionosphere being generated due to the ionization of the neutral lunar atmosphere by the impinging solar UV radiation, the Moon is engulfed by some ion concentration sheaths which are associated with the lunar surface charge regions having symmetric locations. The plasma environment of Moon is not static and constantly changes when it traverses around Earth. About one-fourth of lunar orbit is not in the solar wind path when it is in the Earth’s shadow, where it encounters either the tenuous plasma of the magnetospheric tail lobes or the energetic plasmas of magnetosheath and geomagnetic plasma sheet. Moon, does not possess a magnetosphere or fully developed ionosphere but has an exosphere where tenuous plasma is present to generate several plasma waves in the presence of solar wind.